![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774606868_977_edmondson_laurence_m.jpg&h=80&w=80&scale=crop.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Laurence EdmondsonMar 27, 2026, 05:52 AM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>\u2022\u00a0Joined ESPN in 2009 Multiple Authors<\/p>\n Max Verstappen<\/a> has said Red Bull is still encountering “big problems” with its car after two difficult Friday practice sessions ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n Verstappen was tenth fastest in second practice and 1.4 seconds off Oscar Piastri’s fastest time at Suzuka on Friday.<\/p>\n “It’s not very good to be honest,” Verstappen said after the session. “We are lacking balance and grip — two opposites from FP1 to FP2, and both of them are not very good.<\/p>\n “So from our side a lot of work to be done to understand why we are having these big problems at the moment. Not a good day.”<\/p>\n The difficult start to the race weekend in Japan follows a disappointing Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago in which Verstappen finished ninth in the sprint race and failed to finish the grand prix.<\/p>\n Verstappen said the root cause of the lack of performance was different this weekend, but was still leaving him off the pace of the front runners.<\/p>\n “We just struggled a lot more with balance of the car, grip,” he added. “It was not similar to China, but we’re still off.<\/p>\n “We’re still not really understanding why we’re that far off in sector one, in basically medium to high-speed a lot. That’s something that we need to work on.<\/p>\n “I don’t think it’s an easy fix overnight. But a few things that are not going right at the moment.”<\/p>\n Red Bull’s chief engineer, Paul Monaghan, said the team would attempt to make changes to improve ahead of final practice and qualifying .<\/p>\n – Piastri sets FP2 pace As McLaren hits back at Merc<\/a> “You just have to look at our relative position — it is not at the standard we set ourselves or the standard Max sets us,” Monaghan said.<\/p>\n “I think we’ve identified a few things that are wrong and now it’s a case of can we confirm it and understand it enough that we can influence it, cure it, correct it or whatever for tomorrow, and let’s see how tomorrow goes.<\/p>\n “Today I would describe as challenging.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laurence EdmondsonMar 27, 2026, 05:52 AM ET Close\u2022\u00a0Joined ESPN in 2009\u2022\u00a0An FIA accredited F1 journalist since 2011 Multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-564116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2022\u00a0An FIA accredited F1 journalist since 2011<\/p>\nMax Verstappen chats to Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies during Friday’s practice day in Japan.\u00a0Mark Sutton – Formula 1\/Formula 1 via Getty Images<\/p>\n
– Japanese Grand Prix 2026: Race start time, how to watch<\/a><\/p>\n